Salesforce to use Amazon Web Services for expansion, $400 million deal

Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud-computing services, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is now officially Salesforce’s “preferred public cloud infrastructure provider”, according to public statements issued by the two companies.

The deal, worth $400 million to Amazon over four years, will expand Salesforce’s use of AWS to core services—including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, App Cloud, Community Cloud, Analytics Cloud and more—for the company’s planned international infrastructure expansion.

AWS offers over a range of cloud computing services that make up an on-demand computing platform.

Salesforce, the world’s leading customer relationship management company, is beginning to rely less on the use of its own data centers since its inception 17 years ago, and has become increasingly become more dependent on Amazon Web Services as it pushes ahead with its infrastructure expansion.

“There is no public cloud infrastructure provider that is more sophisticated or has more robust enterprise capabilities for supporting the needs of our growing global customer base.”

“Leading enterprises and ISVs around the world are migrating their business-critical applications to the AWS Cloud to be more agile and efficient, reduce costs, and take advantage of the security, reliability, and broad functionality we offer,” said Andy Jassy, CEO, AWS.

“Companies rely on Salesforce to transform their businesses and we are thrilled Salesforce has chosen AWS as their public cloud infrastructure partner, helping them continue to scale, add new services and maintain their incredible momentum.”

Holger Mueller, analyst with Constellation Research, was quoted by Fortune as saying: “It’s a big deal for AWS as it is the first time it snatches major enterprise software workload since it got Infor a few years ago.”

The deal means Salesforce will rely less on Oracle Corp as its supplier of hardware and software.

“I think that they’re trying to reduce their dependency on Oracle. That’s the key,” Brent Thill, an analyst with UBS AG, told the WSJ. “They built the company on Oracle and they want to reduce that dependency.”

What is the cloud or cloud computing? Put simply, it means storing documents and other data in remote servers rather than in your own hard drive. Several people can access and edit the data, even simultaneously if they want to.